30.

APP. BOOK II.

numerous inscriptions dating long after this introduce the digamma. The style varied slightly in different parts of Greece and Asia Minor, at the same time. Even if letters were used so soon by the Assyrians, as Pliny thinks ("literas semper arbitror Assyrias fuisse," vii. 56), they could not have been the origin of those in Greece. Indeed he adds, "alii apud Ægyptios, alii apud Syrios, repertas volunt;" and it was the "Syrians" (i.e. Phoenicians) who had a real alphabet. Nor is there any evidence of the characters so much like Hebrew found in Assyria having been used at a very remote period. Warburton (Div. Leg. vol. ii. b. iv. s. 4) thinks "that Moses brought letters with the rest of his learning from Egypt;" but the old Hebrew character was the Samaritan, which was closely allied to the Phoenician, and evidently borrowed from it; and that too before the Egyptians had purely alphabetic writing.

It would be interesting if the so-called Sinaïtic inscriptions were written by the Israelities, and were the earliest existing instance of alphabetic writing; but we are not on that account justified in coming to such a conclusion; and to show how unwarranted it is, I need only say that I have found them (beginning too with the same word so common in those at Mount Sinai) on the western, or Egyptian, side of the Red Sea, near the watering-place of Aboo-Durrag; and they appear also at W. Umthummerána (in the Wady Arraba), at Wady Dtháhal (in lat. 28° 40'), and at the port of E'Gimsheh (near Gebel E'Zayt, opposite Ras Mohammed). They must therefore have belonged to a people who navigated the Red Sea, and who frequented the wells on the coast. This was long after the era of the 31. Exodus; and the presence of crosses, and of the Egyptian Tau, in some of the inscriptions at Mount Sinai, argues that they were of a Christian age; for the adoption of the Tau as a cross is shown, by its heading the numerous Christian inscriptions at the Great Oasis, to have been at one time very general in this part of the East. Various materials were employed for writing upon, at different times, and in different countries. Among them were leaves, pith,

32

The writings of Moses date at latest in the end of the 15th century B.C., and the Phoenician letters were probably much older; so that alphabetic characters were used upwards of 1500 years B.C. The Arian writings are later than this; and Sanscrit, from its letters facing to the left, while the words are written from left to right,

gives an evidence of its having borrowed letters from a Semitic source. They are not turned, as in the later Greek, to suit the direction of the words. In Zend the letters face to the left, as the words do; and some of them appear to bear a resemblance to Phoenician characters.

CHAP. V.

MATERIALS FOR WRITING.

317

and bark of trees, used also at the present day, (whence liber and charta,) papyrus or byblus (whence Bible), cloth, bones, skins, leather, stones, pottery, metal, wax-tablets, and other substances.

66

The Greek name dipeépa applied to skins used for writing upon, which were adopted by the Persians also (Diod. ii. 32), has been, as Major Rennell ingeniously supposes, the origin of the Persian and Arabic word "defter," applied to an 66 account," or memorandumbook." Parchment was invented about 250 B.C. by Eumenes, king of Pergamus (whence its name), who, wishing to emulate the Alexandrian library, was unable to obtain papyrus paper through the jealousy of the Ptolemies. These Pergamena, the Roman membrana, were either skins of sheep, or of calves (vitulina, vellum). Pliny is wrong in supposing the papyrus was not used till the age of Alexander; being common (together with the reed pen, palette, 33. and other implements of later Egyptian scribes) in the time of the oldest Pharaohs, at least as early as the 3rd and 4th dynasty; he is equally so in saying that when Homer wrote, Egypt was not all firm land; that the papyrus was confined to the Sebennytic nome; and that the land was afterwards raised; making the usual mistake about Pharos (see note 4 on ch. 5, Book ii.). Of old, he says, "men wrote on leaves of palms and other trees" (as now in Birmah, and other countries), "afterwards public records were on lead, and private on linen and wax;" but all this was long after the papyrus was used in Egypt. He also describes the process of making paper from the papyrus (xiii. 11), and adds (xiii. 12), "the largest in old times was the Hieratic (for holy purposes); afterwards the best was called Augustan, the second Livian, the Hieratic being the third; and the next was the Amphitheatric (from the place where made). Fannius at Rome made an improved kind, called Fannian, that not passing through his hands being still styled Amphitheatric; and next was the Saïtic, a common kind from inferior stalks. The Teniotic, from the part nearest the rind, sold for weight, not for goodness; and the Emporetic of shops, for packing, not for writing upon. The outside was only fit for ropes, and that only if kept wet. The breadth of the best is now 13 fingers (about 9 inches) broad; the Hieratic two less, the Fannian 10, the Amphitheatric 9, the Saïtic less, and the Emporetic (used for business) not above 6. In paper, four things must be looked to, fineness, compactness, whiteness, and smoothness. Claudius Cæsar altered the Augustan, being thin and not bearing the pen, the ink too appearing through

...

318

DIMENSIONS OF PAPYRUS.

APP. BOOK II.

it. He added a second layer in thickness, and made the breadth a foot and 14 foot, or a cubit. . . . It is made smooth or polished with a (boar's) tooth, or a shell." But some sheets of papyrus were much larger than the best of Roman time; the Turin papyrus of kings was at least 14 inches in breadth; this was of the early age of the great Remeses; and I have seen one of 17 and another of 18 inches, of the time of the 19th dynasty. (See At. Eg. W., vol. iii. 61, and 146 to 151, 185; see n. 4 ch. 36, and n. 1 ch. 92, Book ii.) -[G. W.]

CHAP. VI.

GAMES AND PASTIMES.

319

CHAPTER VI.

"GYMNASTIC CONTESTS."-Chap. 91.

1. Gymnastic contests. 2. Game of ball. 3. Thimble-rig and other games. 4. Mora and draughts. 5. Pieces for draughts. 6. Dice. 7. Other games.

GYMNASTIC Contests were not confined to the people of Chemmis: 1. and contests of various kinds, as wrestling (No. I.), single-stick, and feats of strength, were common throughout the country, at least as early as the 12th dynasty. Among their amusements was the game 2. of ball (so much esteemed by the Greeks and Romans also), which they sometimes played by throwing up and catching several balls successively, and often mounted on the back of those who had missed the ball (the ovo, "asses," as the riders were the Barixeîs, of the Greeks). (No. II). They had also the sky-ball (oupavía) which they sometimes caught while jumping off the ground (as in Homer, Od. O. 374). (No. III.) Other games were, swinging each other round by the arms; two men sitting on the ground back to back striving who should rise first (No. V.); throwing knives into a block of wood, nearest to its centre, or to the edge; snatching a hoop from each other with hooked sticks (No. IV.); a man guessing a number, or which of two persons struck him on the back as he knelt, perhaps like the Greek Koλλaßioμós (Jul. Pol. Onom. ix. 7); women tumbling and turning over "like a wheel," described in the Banquet of Xenophon (see At. Eg. W., vol. ii. p. 415 and to the end), for which necklaces and other rewards were given (Nos. VI., VIII.); thimble-rig (No. IX.); raising bags of sand (No. VII.), and 3. other pastimes; among which were contests in boats; fighting with bulls; and bull-fights for prizes, which last are mentioned by Strabo at Memphis (No. XI.) Still more common were the old game of Móra; comp. "micare digitis," the modern Italian mora (No. X., 4. Fig. 1; No. XIII., Fig. 2); odd and even (No. X., Fig. 2); and draughts, miscalled chess, which is "Hab," a word now used by the Arabs for "men," or "counters" (Nos. XII., XIII.) This last was also a game in Greece, where they often threw for the move; whence Achilles and Ajax are represented on a Greek vase calling